


mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur

by merrymegtargaryen



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Cuckolding, Do not repost, F/M, Impregnation, jaime likes to keep it in the family, joffrey lives au, take that as you will, this isn't anti-cersei but it sure ain't pro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:07:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25434388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merrymegtargaryen/pseuds/merrymegtargaryen
Summary: “Unfortunately, they aren’t just my troubles.” She peers at him with meaning. “The king needs an heir. If he should die on the battlefield, then where would that leave the country?” Margaery’s eyes are wide. “Will you help me, Ser Jaime?”“Help you…?”It is only then that he realizes her hand is on his knee.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Margaery Tyrell
Comments: 24
Kudos: 124





	mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur

The world wants to be deceived, therefore let it be deceived.

~Gaius Petronius

It’s been nine months since Joffrey wedded Margaery Tyrell. Nine months, exactly the length of time it takes a babe to quicken in the womb and be born, and yet Queen Margaery’s belly remains as flat as ever.

It isn’t unusual, for a bride not to conceive immediately, but it isn’t ideal when the realm is war-torn and the king is little more than a child himself. As much as she had hated Robert, at least Cersei had waited until she had three children and the eldest was nearly grown to have her husband killed. If Joffrey dies, Margaery does not even have a squalling infant to take his place. 

Privately, Jaime cannot help but wonder if that might not be for the best--if Joffrey dies without an heir of his body. After all, what would a son of his be like? Cold and cruel, like Joffrey? Clever and cunning, like Margaery?

_Margaery should do the realm a favor and cuckold Joffrey with a sweet and biddable fool if we want an end to this war._

.

Margaery, it turns out, has the same idea...but the fool in question is the last person Jaime expected.

.

It’s his turn to guard the queen while she sleeps. He has not failed to note that Margaery always sleeps alone; Joffrey never spends the night, and rarely seems to call on the queen at all, at least when Jaime is around. Perhaps the lad is lustier when the other knights of the Kingsguard are on duty...but why he should be, Jaime doesn’t know. 

He often wonders if Margaery is happy where she is. Her family’s alliance with his was a clear play for power, one that they won. Margaery married one king, and when he died, she married another. Now she is the queen for true.

But is it what she wanted? Being married to Joffrey cannot be easy. She always seems to bear his tantrums with patience, but how much of that patience is wearing thin beneath the surface? In the privacy of her rooms, when her guards and her maids are not surrounding her, does she let herself feel exhausted at last? Does she stare at her reflection and wonder what sort of monster she married?

The door opens, and he straightens up. 

Margaery is ready for bed but clearly has not been asleep yet; her hair is smooth and brushed, her eyes bright and alert. She smiles at him.

“Ser Jaime.”

“Your Grace,” he greets, offering a small bow. 

Her smile widens. “I wonder if you would keep me company, Ser Jaime? I fear I cannot sleep.”

Cersei would oft ask him to do the same thing; to keep her company when she could not sleep. No one blinked an eye at brother entering sister’s room in the middle of the night--assuming there was anyone there to blink at all. No one is here now, either...but surely Margaery’s intentions are different from Cersei’s. 

And what is the harm? The Kingsguard spend their lives with their charges; is it so strange that the queen would ask him to sit up with her a while? He may as well, as long as he is guarding her.

“Of course, my queen,” he says at last, stepping into her chamber. She closes the door behind him with something like a shy expression.

“Can I get you anything? I only have water and wine…”

“I am perfectly well, thank you, Your Grace,” he says politely. 

She sits in one of the chairs by the hearth, gesturing for him to do the same. He sits across from her, shifting his sword so it does not scrape the chair. 

“That must be uncomfortable,” she says, nodding at the sword.

“In truth, I have grown so used to it that I am less comfortable without it.”

She smiles. Her smile is pretty, as is everything about her. “I could never carry around something so heavy all the time. You must be very strong, and patient.”

“Traits that every knight of the Kingsguard should possess,” he says politely. 

She nods her head in agreement. “Yes, of course. Strong, and patient.” She muses for a moment, her tongue darting out to wet her lips. Such pretty pink lips. They’re made for kissing, the singers would say. 

Does Joffrey kiss her? Not the chaste pecks in front of the court, but true kisses, the way a man ought to kiss his lady love? Jaime has never seen him do it, but then, he’s never liked watching kings be alone with their queens. Aerys and Rhaella, Robert and Cersei...now Joffrey and Margaery. He wonders if their marriage is as doomed as the last two. 

“Ser Jaime,” she says, drawing him from his own musings. “Might I confide something...sensitive? Something that I must beg you not to share with anyone else?”

He raises his eyebrows. What sort of secret could Margaery Tyrell want to share with him? “Of course, Your Grace.”

She hesitates, clasping her hands in her lap. “It’s...it’s about the king.” 

“Alright.”

She hesitates again. “The king...you see...he has trouble...well, we can’t make a child.”

Jaime blinks. He hadn’t seen that one coming. But hadn’t Aerys been the same way? He’d only been able to lie with his queen after hurting or killing someone, and she always left with bruises and bite marks. Is Joffrey the same way, and hasn’t yet realized what he needs to finish inside his little queen? Is he like Renly and unable to be inside a woman at all? Surely Jaime would have noticed by now...but then, wouldn’t he have noticed by now that the king hardly spends any time with his wife?

“I see,” he says carefully. 

“I’ve tried,” she hastens to assure him. “I’ve tried everything. I had problems with Renly, too--but...perhaps I should not say anything about him.” Her cheeks flush.

Jaime shakes his head. “You can speak freely to me, Your Grace.”

She hesitates. “Renly...he wasn’t interested in the company of women, I think everybody knows that. But with Joffrey...it’s different. I don’t think it’s the company of women specifically he abhors. I think it’s...everyone. Everything. On our wedding night he claimed he had had too much to drink, and I do think that was true...but I also think he drank too much for a reason.”

Jaime considers this. “You think he knew he wouldn’t be able...to make...a child?” he asks delicately.

“I don’t know,” she admits. “You know him better than I do.”

That should be true, but Jaime doesn’t think anyone will ever truly know Joffrey. Cersei was as close as anyone got, but even she finds the boy frightening and unpredictable these days, and if his own mother does not know him…

“The boy I knew as a child and the king I now serve are not always the same person, Your Grace,” he tells her, still in that delicate tone of voice. “So does this mean that in your nine months of marriage, you and the king haven’t…?”

“We’ve tried.” She looks weary. “I confided in the women in my family when I was married to Renly, and I tried to use their advice, but...none of it seems to work. And the king has a...short temper when he is embarrassed.”

“He certainly does,” Jaime says wryly. “I am sorry to hear about your troubles, Your Grace.”

“Unfortunately, they aren’t just _my_ troubles.” She peers at him with meaning. “The king needs an heir. If he should die on the battlefield--”

Jaime resists the urge to snort; the thought of Joffrey on the battlefield is an amusing one, and a scene not like to happen anytime soon. 

“--then where would that leave the country? He has a younger brother, yes, but Tommen is…”

“Not a king,” Jaime finishes without meaning to. “A good lad, but he was not made for the crown, that is true.”

Margaery’s eyes are wide. “Will you help me, Ser Jaime?”

“Help you…?”

It is only then that he realizes her hand is on his knee.

He swallows. He has never been with another woman before. Only Cersei. The sister he loved more than anything, more than his own miserable life.

But she hadn’t loved him back with the same ferocity. 

“She’s a lying whore,” Tyrion had said darkly. “She’s been fucking Lancel and Osmund Kettleblack and probably Moon Boy for all I know.”

She had not fucked Moon Boy, she’d assured Jaime...but she admitted to fucking Lancel, and not just Osmund Kettleback, but his brothers, too. 

“I’m doing this for Joffrey,” she’d insisted. “I’m doing this for our _son._ ”

He’d pointed a finger at her. “Don’t you do that. Don’t you call him our son when you’ve never let me call him that before. Fuck whoever you like, but don’t expect me to play the fool for you anymore.”

He hasn’t been alone with his sister since.

Oddly, she’s the first thing that comes to mind when he realizes Margaery’s hand is on his leg. Not that he feels any loyalty to Cersei in that moment, but rather, he wonders if this is some petty act of revenge against his sister. It’s well known that the two queens do not get along. If Margaery is trying to get back at Cersei, it will go badly for all of them. 

But would she know? Margaery? About him and Cersei? There are the rumors, of course, but does Margaery believe them?

Perhaps she really does want an heir. It doesn’t surprise him to hear that Joffrey can’t perform, when Jaime has never overheard them, has never seen Joffrey leaving Margaery’s room in the middle of the night or the early hours of the morning with a smug look on his face. Margaery’s womb has not quickened in nine months. 

And of course she would be concerned, because if she and Joffrey have a child, she will be queen dowager after he dies. She can still guide her son--and if that son happens to be a child, she can rule as his regent. If he dies childless, then Tommen becomes the king, and Margaery just becomes a widow to be swept to the side. 

If anyone found out, he would pay with his head. With any other king, there might be some hope of sending him to the Wall, but Joffrey is not like to be as forgiving. He’d take Jaime’s head, and probably his cock, too.

But Jaime fucked Cersei right under Robert’s nose for years and no one ever found out. Save Jon Arryn, who died, and Ned Stark, who also died. There are still rumors, but what does Jaime care about rumors?

_The lion doesn’t concern itself with the opinion of sheep,_ his father used to say.

But does Jaime even _want_ to fuck Margaery? His nephew’s--his _son’s_ \--wife? What would he get out of it? A secret vengeance against Cersei? More shame to soil the white cloak around his shoulders? 

“Ser Jaime,” she murmurs, and then she’s kneeling on the floor between his legs. He tries halfheartedly to stop her, but she’s unlacing him with deft fingers. “The realm needs an heir. And I...I have needs of my own.”

He swallows, hating how quickly he responds to her fingers touching his cock. He’s never wanted another woman before, has never felt any desire for women who weren’t his sister...but in some ways, Margaery reminds him of her. Or maybe that’s just what he’s telling himself as he tries to justify his sudden attraction to a woman who is not his sister.

When Margaery wraps those pretty pink lips around his cock, he makes a sound like a green boy, hips jerking. 

Margaery does not flinch, taking him deep in her throat and locking eyes with him while she does it. She licks and sucks until he’s so hard he can barely stand it, and then she releases him with a wet sound, her lips red and shining. 

He stands up, fumbling with the buckle of his swordbelt and cursing himself for an oaf. Margaery’s deft fingers divest him of his swordbelt, cloak, and armor, and then she’s pulling him to the bed, spreading her legs for him.

Her curls are darker than Cersei’s. He climbs onto the bed, suddenly feeling like a bumbling fool. He’s never been with another woman--does he even know what to do? 

But Margaery pulls him towards her, taking him in hand and guiding him into her.

Gods, she feels good. Warm and wet and willing. _Very_ willing; no sooner has he filled her than she wraps her legs around his hips, urging him to fuck her. 

He tries to go slow and gentle--she is a queen, after all--but she whispers for more, more, _gods,_ more, and Jaime cannot help but obey.

It feels strange, to be inside another woman. The noises she makes are different from Cersei’s, the feel of her hands on his back is different, even the way her cunt grips his cock is different. 

Yet Jaime can read her as if he knows her. He knows what she wants and responds to every moan and sigh, every touch of her hand. He used to think he and Cersei were made for each other, but being inside Margaery is a bliss unlike any he’s ever known. When he touches her between her legs, she lets out the sweetest cry, nails biting into the flesh of his back as her cunt squeezes him. 

He finishes right after her, hips slamming into hers as he spills his seed with an embarrassingly youthful eagerness. Margaery rocks her hips against his, as if to soak up every last drop--you never know, he supposes, which one will take. 

When he has finished, he hovers over her for a moment, uncertain. Does he stay and hold her like a lover? Does he pull up his breeches and leave her like a man who needed to scratch an itch? 

“You had better get back outside,” she whispers. “Before someone notices you’re missing.”

“Yes. Of course.” He straightens up, horrified at the flush on his cheeks as he shoves himself back into his pants. Margaery watches with sparkling eyes as he dresses himself, settling a pillow beneath her legs.

“To make the seed take,” she explains. “My grandmother told me.”

The very mention of the Queen of Thorns has soured any amorous feelings that remained; he dresses quickly and leaves her with a bow, wondering what in the seven hells he’s done. At least, he tells himself, it was just the one time.

.

It is not just the one time.

Margaery pulls him into her room every night he’s assigned to watch over her, and once or twice, he fucks her in a servants’ stairwell in broad daylight. It is no longer a matter of putting a babe inside her; Margaery’s pleasure is too real to be feigned, and Jaime finds himself stiffening at the very thought of her. 

He’s no stranger to sneaking around and fucking a queen behind the king’s back. He knows all the secret places, the ways to avoid suspicion and gossip.

Worst of all, he knows the torment of watching her with a man she does not love, hanging on his arm and presenting her cheek for chaste kisses. When Jaime is with her, he licks and bites and sucks every inch of her, claiming her. Joffrey will never know Margaery as intimately as Jaime does. 

No man ever will. 

.

Three months after that first night, Margaery announces to the court that she is with child.

The courtiers gasp and applaud and congratulate the mother-to-be. Only Joffrey does not share in their joy, watching his wife with suspicious eyes.

It’s a neat snare she’s caught him in. If he claims the child is not his, he’ll have to admit to everyone that he is impotent. He could have her head for adultery, and that might serve for a time, but it would never be able to erase the stain of humiliation. Women would giggle behind their hands, courtiers would whisper, the smallfolk would laugh, and Joffrey would never be taken seriously as a king. 

An all-too-familiar presence comes to rest beside Jaime.

Cersei.

“It’s not his,” she says at once. 

He doesn’t say anything, but Cersei keeps talking.

“That child is not Joffrey’s. I know it isn’t.”

“What makes you say that?” he asks in his most bored tone. 

“Joffrey finds her repulsive. He told me so himself. He cannot bear to make love to her.”

“Any man with a working cock would want to make love to her.”

He can feel Cersei’s anger. “That child isn’t his,” she repeats. “I know it. Have you seen anything? Any men going into her chambers?”

He remembers the last time he went to Margaery, when she came so hard she bit down on his shoulder to muffle her screams. The bite mark is still there, hidden beneath his white cloak. 

“Not that I’ve seen.”

“You’re sure?” Cersei presses. 

“I’m sure. I know you hate the girl, but the Tyrells are stronger than we are, and if you do anything rash, we will all pay for it.”

“No one is stronger than we are.” Cersei leaves him, head held high. 

Once, Jaime might have chased after her. Now, he stands rooted to the spot, watching Margaery touch her belly and smile as lords and ladies congratulate her. When her eyes find his, her smile widens.

_Oh, Jaime, you great fool. What have you done?_

.

He keeps coming to Margaery even though she’s already with child. He feels an odd sort of possessiveness, knowing it’s his child inside her. Cersei had barely let him near her during her own pregnancies, so in many ways, this feels like his first. He likes watching Margaery grow rounder, likes pressing his ear to her bare belly and listening to the babe inside. 

Cersei is still determined that the child is not Joffrey’s, and she makes the perilous mistake of saying as much in a crowded room. 

It was a poorly calculated move to turn the court on Margaery, and it has the opposite effect. Instead, the courtiers flock to Margaery’s side, offering her comfort and support while Tywin sends his daughter back to Casterly Rock. 

Around the same time, Joffrey decides to pay a visit to the men fighting in the Riverlands, to hearten them and show them that their king fights with them. Loras Tyrell is amongst his Kingsguard, and Jaime suspects that should Margaery be delivered of a healthy son, Ser Loras will see to it that Joffrey does not return to King’s Landing.

It should upset Jaime, to think of his own son’s assassination...but in truth, he feels only relief. Joffrey is his son in deed alone; he has never called Jaime his father, nor has Jaime called him his son. Joffrey believes he is the child of Robert Baratheon, and in many ways, Jaime sees more of Robert in the boy than himself. He is, at the very least, a shit king, and a regency under Margaery would mean the peace and prosperity Joffrey has so long denied them. 

_It’s not just Robert he takes after. It’s Aerys II, who would have burned the Seven Kingdoms to the ground if it meant he could be king of the ashes. Joffrey is my seed and raised by Robert, but there is more of the Mad King in him than anything._

.

Joffrey is still in the Riverlands when Margaery’s time comes upon her. Jaime forces himself to wait outside the door for the seven hours she spends laboring, crying out with a raw pain he never thought possible from the little queen. He had forced his way into the birthing room when it was Cersei’s time, and they had allowed it because he was her brother. They will not make such exceptions for a mere knight of the Kingsguard, for the uncle of her husband. 

The sun is low in the sky when he finally hears the babe’s cries. He sags in relief, head thunking back against the wall as the newborn fills the air with the piercing cry only newborns have. 

“It’s a son!” one of the midwives declares, and Jaime breathes another sigh of relief even as the birth of one son condemns the other. 

.

People come and go all afternoon and evening, popping in to see the new little prince and wish him and his mother well. Jaime stands guard outside, watching a never-ending parade of Tyrells proclaim their pride and joy. 

Jaime does not dare enter until the last of the well-wishers has left. There are only two maids in the room, and they cast Jaime little more than a glance.

“Ser Jaime,” Margaery calls, smiling from the bed. For a woman who just gave birth, she looks radiant. Jaime does not doubt that her maids have been at her, combing her hair and dabbing her face with rosewater to make her presentable for her visitors. 

“Your Grace,” he greets, eyeing the bundle of blankets in her arms. “I came to pay my respects to the prince.”

“Here he is.”

He takes halting steps forward, looking at the smooth, perfect face of his son. He’s sleeping now, but Jaime can already tell he has Margaery’s nose, and he says as much to the queen.

“Perhaps,” she laughs, “but he takes after his father. See his hair?” She pulls back the blanket, revealing pale wisps of blond hair. “He’s a golden lion.” She smiles softly up at Jaime. “Just like his father.”

Jaime swallows. “Gods be good.”

“Would you like to hold him, Ser Jaime? You are family, after all.”

Jaime’s throat goes dry. Cersei had not let him hold the children. She was afraid people would see the resemblance and put two and two together.

Margaery has no such compunctions; she looks at him expectantly, holding out her son.

_Their_ son.

He nods and reaches out, taking the infant in his arms. 

The boy is small and warm, and Jaime chokes back a sob. This is the fourth child he’s sired, but this is the first time a child has truly felt like his own. 

He raises his eyes to Margaery, who’s watching him with a tenderness that makes him want to weep.

“Your Grace,” he says, clearing his throat. “I think you should write to the king and tell him the happy news. Your brother will want to hear it, too.”

“I think,” she says slowly, realization dawning, “you are right, Ser Jaime.” 

He bends down to return the babe to his mother. Margaery tips her lips to his ear. “I will need you now, Jaime, more than ever.”

“You need a one-handed kingslayer? A kinslayer? An oathbreaker?”

“Yes,” she says simply.

He bows his head. “Then you shall have me.”

Margaery smiles, and despite the wrongness of it all...Jaime cannot help feel that for once in his life, he’s done something right.


End file.
